


Don't Want It Back

by PeanutsRomano



Category: Bully (Video Games)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-05-15 15:32:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19298602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeanutsRomano/pseuds/PeanutsRomano





	1. Prologue

_April 12, 1996_  
☂☁

* * *

 

Lighting is dim inside of a decrepit stone brick house, the only availability of iridescence pours through the windows. Rain impairs the brightness of the light, only obscuring each room even more. The rain drops are like catprints pattering against the translucent glass, sounding like thunderous slaps upon the fragility of the surface. The rain becomes heavier, blaring through the entire house. Even as it evolves louder than before, a young boy prefers the horrid cymbals of every raindrop than fighting from his parents.

Their arguments intensified more than the rain, ascending to the point of hostility brewing in the house. There was the clashing of the tables being knocked down, tossing of lamps and frail objects being spewed at the other person. The mixture of shattering and feuding deafens the boy more than the booming thunder. Overwhelmed, he clutches onto his pillow firmly, and coils it around the back of his head. He desperately compresses it against his earlobes, in hopes of soaking out the feud next to his bedroom. He squished it tighter with all of his force, but even the might from the softest pillow cushion couldn’t extract out the arguing. The vain of his parents could never be removed from the substance of his home.

"Bitch stop fighting me!" His father's rough voice was blaring through the walls. He swore these walls had been constructed paper thin, and their quarreling could effortlessly damage it.

"Not until we find out a way to feed these worthless shitbags. We don't have a dime to this household, and it's all because of you, you stupid piece of shit!" His mother screeched, adding to her caterwaul with a lamp to dance loosely in the air. For all he knew, he wouldn't be surprised if it did the tango in order to greet his father.

"It ain't my fault these shit for brains are needy. They are the reason they consume all of our funds. We have nothing!"

"Why the hell did we have them? They are bound to ruin our lives, fuck they already are."

"That fucking five year old we have costed me more this month for coloring on the walls. If it wasn't for our pathetic son, the little bitch would of learned her lesson the right way! She deserved to get smacked, she doesn't know any better."

"These damn kids. Satan's little brats is what they are."

He remained in his bed, eyes glued tightly and refusing to open them. Gritted teeth, sewn eyes, and bruised skin were all the properties that screamed neglect of a poor child. Scarred over his brain were fragments of the abuse his parents tormented him with. The weight of degrades, fights, and threats had been nothing more than tattoos engraved into his mind. The pressures of abuse his sister had to battle herself, often he had substituted himself and endured the pain she wouldn’t have to deal with.

Scattered on his bed like ash from a smoldering fire, released new thoughts on the solution to this limitless pain. It was too difficult to deal with, the torture from his parents that suffocated him was long overdue.

Exhausted from being susceptible to the abuse, he disengaged from the pillow. Suddenly, the slamming of doors alarmed him and the arguing had subdued. The rain surpassed the current silence that distilled the house, lightning strikes rolling in with the mesh of the intensity in the rain. In that moment, he knew that they were gone. The treacherous villains had gone up and abandoned their young children, alone in the darkened comfort of their house.

He had only been eight, while his younger sister had been stuck at five. Despite only being eight, the torment of his parents that beared over him ingrained sense into him. The common sense that he must shield his sister from the bad, even from the breaking bad that was their parents.

This had been a blessing in disguise for him now that they were gone. This was the chance of a lifetime, one of those opportunities he must take like captivating fireflies in a jar.

Scrambling up from his bed, he retrieved his bookbag and dumped his school books he could care less about. Replacing those books, he tossed randomly scrunched up clothes into his bag. Heedless, he didn’t care about the wrinkles that would possess each article of clothing that was stuffed into the bag. They were buried into the caverns of his book bag, veiled with the equipment he needed for the escape.

He accommodated a flashlight and crammed his pillow into his bag. For entertainment, he added his bag of marbles and box of Uno cards for later. He wasn’t necessarily the type of boy to own a stuffed animal, so that he lacked in bringing. The only shoes he had were his tattered sneakers, so he didn’t have to worry about shoes consuming too much space in his backpack. When he presumed he had everything, he zipped his backpack and slipped it over his shoulders.

He departed his room and closed the door behind him conclusively, hoping it would be his final stay in that room. This house was a calamity let alone anywhere it would be if it meant living with his abusive parents. Their potent upholding in their abuse was straining every tendon of his mental capacity, and he just couldn’t bear it any longer. It was his priority to sustain a better life for him and his baby sister, to improve the habitat of their environment.

No more reckless misery or restless and feverish nights. There was no need for them to indulge in the survival of the grievance that occupied this house. Especially for his sister, who is still in a world brimful of innocence in her youth. He didn’t want the prime of her youth to be blemished with wounds from this chaos he couldn’t escape himself. She deserved so much worth, and even though he was only eight years old, he provided better care for his sister than their parents have ever done.

He didn’t even hesitate or cease the moment with the faintest knock on her door. Opening it without disturbances to cross his path, revealed on the floor content with her button nose dived into a book was his sister. Engaged aside her in her reading was her stuffed koala bear, Keke that resembled the color of an anchor. He had given it to her for her fifth birthday, and ever since, there hasn’t been a day where it was without her. It had become her companion, just as he did from the beginning.

She glanced up from her book, a rare occasion where curiosity sparked her interest that didn’t involve the mystical realm and enchantments of literature. Her unsprouted eyebrows furrowed, trying to contort into confusion as to why her brother stormed in her room without explanation. Particularly, when he had aimlessly attained her bright pink bag that always reminded her of ripe strawberries.

“What are you doing big brother?”

“No time to talk, lil sis. We are in a hurry.” His response was hasty, as he was shoving a bunch of clothes into her bag.

She stood up, clutching onto her book and cradling Keke in one of her arms. “Hurry for what?”

“Don’t ask, just go with it. Add all the stuff you want to bring with you and can bring with you,” he ordered, lifting himself back to his feet, “we are running away.”

Her hickory orbs glimmered at him, bewilderment manifesting her gaze.

“Running away? Where would we run to?”

“Dunno,” he huffed, combining their gaze when he peered to her, “probably grandma’s house?”

She fidgeted, nervousness flaring inside of the younger girl.  
“Isn’t that really far from here?”  
“It’s a long ways away, but it’s our ticket outta this dump. It’s no good for us, sis. I am sick of being here.”

Doubt gorged the apples of her eyes, considering they were only children. Anything could happen to them in this abhorrent world, despite the fact she could depend on her brother for anything. The monsters underneath her bed were far from scary in comparison to the monsters that lurked in the real world.

“How would we get there? We could get lost,” she clarified, a valid point that was brought forth to the table. Her older brother was concentrating only on impulse rather than acceptable reasoning. Clearly, he didn’t think this true, and she didn’t want to settle for running on empty. It was a dangerous route to risk, and she rather take her chances of staying at home than endangering herself.

Irritation implemented her brother’s voice. “I’ll figure it out, no need to worry lil sis. How many times do I have to tell you? We need to get outta here. Being here isn’t safe for us, and you know it. I know you do.”

He noticed how his sister wasn’t convinced. Her gape intentionally reallocated to where it didn’t settle with his.

There was that fear lodged inside of her that he could easily sense from a mile away. She was in dire need of assurance; he’s never let her down before and he would be damned if he did.

He knelt down to where he approached her level, the eight year old ascending much taller than her in her height. For a five year old, she was rather small for age and thus served another reason for him to shelter her. She was petite, anything could happen to her if he wasn’t around.

His eyes met the duplicates of his, in a way feeling like he was peering directly into his reflection. It was effortless for anyone to tell that these two were siblings, from their mutual characteristics of chocolate brown hair and the hickory that splashed inside the orbs of their eyes. Their noses were identical, both dainty, button noses.

“I know it may seem scary for us to run away, we are going to be out on our own. But lemme ask you this: the times that we have explored town together, alone and without mom or dad, did anything happen to you?”

There was a question she absolutely couldn’t deny the answer; it was just that obvious.

She shook her head lightly, affirming the no in her answer.  
“That’s because you had me. It won’t be any different than the other times, because you had me by your side. I won’t let anything happen to you. I would put myself first before you if we were in a dangerous situation. But we won’t be, I will stop from letting that happen. I know how to fend for myself, and as a matter of fact, I am going to steal dad’s pocket knife to protect us.”

Her eyes widened at the thought of him using such a weapon; the idea of her brother dealing with sharp objects at his age worried her tremendously.

“You are taking it away from him? What if he gets mad?”

He aimed a finger at her as if she just solved the puzzle like it had been an aired episode of Wheel of Fortune. “That. That right there is why we are running away. I’m not going to put up with the pain of Dad hurting us. I’m not putting up with it anymore sis.”

Guilt immersed through her, where she lamented her shame to him instantly.

“But what if we make him sad?”

“Sis,” he expelled a sigh, aggravated and trying desperately to bear with her innocence.

“If he truly cared about us, he wouldn’t hurt us. We aren’t going to upset him the slightest bit, because if he cared, he would have more than half of a mind to know that it’s not okay to hurt us. His own children. I know how much it hurts you that dad doesn’t bother to spend time with you, and I’m tired of it.”

The light that flickered in her orbs stored away the glory in the angelic hickory orbs. Realization struck her like the lightning that pounded against the window. She peered to her window, alarmed by the thunder’s roar. Storms terrified her immensely due to the amount of power it held. Who knew how something so simple, and so little as a raincloud rage dynamic. The force it had of disabling the light, dismantling the sturdiest of trees, and ceasing people from committing to their activities.

She observed the rain, narrowing her gaze in a scrutiny. Dazing off, she inspected the little crystals brushing against the window, intensely crying and harrowing their pain to the Vincent residence.

The five year old wondered who had wretched the heart. If there was a heart that did belong to the sky, who’s job was it to keep it fulfilled at the bliss it desired to keep?

Whoever’s job was that they were failing their duty to keep the sky happy.

“Let’s go, big brother,” the young girl joined him on the voyage at last. Besides, this would be another one of their adventures, and the thrill of their adventures always kept her anxiously abiding for another one.

A content beam was allotted to her brother, grateful that she realized they must desert the bad that beared the house once and for all.

“Good, finish packing,” he instructed her, lifting himself up to his feet where now he hovered over his petite sister. Already she ignited her head start and finished her packing, squeezing each object she could into her small bag.

“I am going to keep watch for mom and dad in case they come back.”

“What if they come back?” His sister queried, fear caping over her gaze.

The boy halted to a stop, gyrating around leisurely whilst he devised a plan quickly. Ruminating and concluding his thought process in an instant, his eyes directly shifted to the window inside her room. From how somber the house had been, lacking the power and light, the eight year old boy felt like he was being warped into a tunnel. His eyes refused to remove his gaze from the rain that sheathed the window.

“We are still leaving,” he addressed softly, his hand clutching onto one of the straps of his backpack firmly.

“Plan B, we lock this door, and leave out the window. That is, if they do come back. I don’t think they will.”

His carbon copy nodded simply, understanding his plan comprehensively.

Her brother smiled and ruffled the chocolate top of her hair, which since she was petite for her age, her hair had extended to her back. It was silky, the texture similar to his.

“Go finish packing, I am going to make us a couple of sandwiches.”

His sister resumed packing while he headed to the kitchen, rapidly pacing into it. As he rummaged through the cupboards for the peanut butter, he darted a dagger at the front door, making sure there wouldn’t be any trace of their parents return. Concluding there was no sign of them, he fixed his concentration sternly on assembling the sandwiches.

The youthful girl, brimful of delight and dazzling innocence examined her room scrupulously, ingested every item that she was certain she had wanted to cram into her bag. In the corner of her eye, she discovered a specific object she desired to bring with her. Everywhere if she could, she would bring it anywhere she wandered, and it stored heavily a newfound remedy that consumed her heart whole.

Approaching it, she retrieved a picture framed of her and her brother from Halloween. A smile was revealed, as eight months ago that moment had been the best night of her life. Attired in a fuscia princess costume, she was settled aside her brother who had been dressed as Dallas from The Outsiders. Leather jacket as lustrous as it can be, his mop of chocolate hair combed neatly and bangs smoothed out over his forehead, flattened to the point it practically hid his forehead. In front of them, they latched onto plastic pumpkins that were a blazing flame orange. Her brother's friends mother had captured the memory for them, and had printed the picture from the nearest pharmacy to give to the siblings. 

The five year old added it to her bag as if she was shopping for groceries, stocking each item one by one into a cart. Scanning around in her surveillance, there weren't any other items she could possibly add to her bag. Even if she did, it would be impossible to squeeze anything else in. 

As she peered around the room, she ingested how vacant the room had been. Distilled with emptiness, as the young girl had been stripped bare and clean. Without her soft mulberry blanket that twined around her like grapes on a vine, her mattress had been deemed boring. Live had eliminated itself from the meaning of this room, perhaps realizing it now, did this room have any meaning to it? Aside from the purposes her books served to her as they occupied a shelf and the coloring books that were previously stacked in a pile, the house didn't have the pleasures of meaning. No values for her or her brother to cherish, as it daunted her that this wasn't her home. If it was her home, her sweet home she could enjoy frolicking to, her parents would actually care for her existence. Their love would swell, and their palpitating hearts would burst the streams of colors in vivid splendor. If it was a home, love would be settled in this house, not blessed with wicked hate. 

A wearisome sigh was drawn out, the chest heave from her breath inhaling every realization that his house wasn't what it was cracked up to be. 

She exited the room, twisting the knob from behind her as she tugged it closed. There in the living room was her older brother, slathering gooey grape jam on one of the pieces of bread. 

"I hate grape jelly!" She complained, sticking out her tongue. Earning an annoyed glance from her older brother, he help up the jelly jar for her to see.

"This is all we have sis, sorry." 

A groan was ejected from her, but considering her brother went out of his way to construct the sandwich for her, she didn't complain.

"I wish there was strawberry jelly. Did you check?" 

"I did-" Johnny didn't finish his sentence when Sabrina swung open the top freezer refrigerator that was as white as a polar bear. Another groan confirmed that she didn't find her strawberry jelly like she had hoped. The fridge was brimful of Everclear vodka bottles, Miller's Light beer cans, and a few condiments if you considered it food. 

"Are you sure you checked?" She asked irritably. 

"What about up there?" She pointed to the cupboards, in hopes she would discover her precious jelly had been lost at sea, in the cupboards. Spontaneous peeked in, a desire for an adventure was craved for the youthful five year old. Her feet clicked against the handle of the drawer, utilizing it as steps to climb to the counter. After her brother finished making her sandwich, he noticed his idiotic sister sliding up towards the counter. 

"Sis! Get off the counter!" His arms coiled around her waist, tugging her off the counter. She battled against him, her fingers clawing into the oak tree colored countertop for support. 

"I want strawberry jelly!" 

"I checked already! Get off!" He ordered, pulling her away. When he finally released her from the counter, he stumbled backwards, nearly collapsing onto one of the chairs. 

His arms swooped underneath the pits of her arms, embracing her tightly to prevent her from escaping and mounting to the summit of the counter once again. 

Barely, he fell, but thanks to his knees arched up it retained his balance. 

Huffing in shallow breaths, he regained his regular breathing. Cautiously, he released his squirrel of a sister who squirmed in the weight of his force. Appearing as if she was going to storm for the counter yet again, he latched onto her arm, tugging her and rotating her to where she was facing him. Anger wretched his face, furrowed eyebrows and his lips sketched in a firm line it couldn't deviate into not even a sly grin. 

"Sis," he began, silence distilled amid them.

"Look at me."

Thunder clapped, and branches were snapped, marred from the calamity of mother nature's fight against the world. Raindrops speckled the window in bizarre takes like no one could ever believe. The windows were like a slate, the house dimming as if the house had crept into some kind of an abyss. 

The sister was penetrated by distraction as the pale window was seared with hot rain. Droplets had intensified to stains, dotted in aligned patterns that reminded the imaginative girl of bubble wrap. Desperately, she wanted to extend an arm and reach out to the rain. She related to the bubbles, all an endless supply of confinement against a surface of limitations and misfortune. No matter how arduous it would be to escape the bubble in an emergence of freedom for merriment, she had to keep pushing her way out. As frail as she had been, she was stronger already at her age than people claimed credit for. She had to burst the bubbling of disasters that erupted in this volcanic home.

Her brother cupped two hands on her shoulders, forcing his sister to avert her gaze to his. The butterflies that soared through her eyes in flocks like birds scattered along her eyes as a new light replaced the dim room. The sun had chased away the rain, leisurely and a translucent cerulean began to swallow the ash that was littered in the sky. 

Sparkles danced along his sister's right cheek, adorned on her was a vivid pink that the sun wanted him to recognize. Guilt was plagued in her gaze, as she was aware of the mistake she had made. From the melancholy that merged into her gaze, her brother could tell what was coming. Another one of those brotherly talks that instructed her to pertain as a good kid. Act as the opposite of who he was, and who he had been at her age.

"You can't be acting like that when we get outta here, you understand? You can't be running off and doing some crazy thing if we are going to be out on our own. That's how you can get hurt." 

Her head dipped, bowing in shame and humiliation. "Sorry big brother. I won't do it anymore. I promise."

His tension was ameliorated when his sister's guilt made him pity her. Expelling a sigh, he patted her on the back reassuringly and granted her the smile she loved seeing. It meant that their relationship was square to the point it couldn't be deformed into another shape; No one could ever cause the relationship to be tangible where anyone could deteriorate it with a quick eye of drama.

"It's okay," he accepted. 

"Also, if I tell you something more than one time, it means it's true. You know I won't ever lie to you. You can trust me." 

She nodded, reciprocating with a widespread smile of her own. 

"Does that mean we are okay?"

A laugh was released, her question baffling him. It was stupid her to enunciate a question like that, in spite of her being the brainiac of the siblings. 

"We are always going to be okay, sis."

"What if someday we aren't okay?"

The idea popped into his brain undesirably. He's heard of the stories posted everywhere where siblings after several years find each other repulsive and refuse to make any contact. It frightened him immensely to the point he squeezed all of his time he could to bond with his duplicate that could pass off for being his twin. Preventing that from happening, he would participate in goony and girly activities; he had become a full fledged pansy for his sister. Unlike some of the siblings in their grade, these two spent every awaking hour on the school playground. Their friend groups had been the same, where his sister had clung to him like bark on a tree. 

"That won't happen," he insisted, a solemn arousal had found his voice.

"But what if it does?" She fretted.

"I'll never let that happen to us, it won't, because you know why?" 

"We aren't like those siblings. We are our own kind of siblings. Now come on, let's go show the world just the kind of siblings we are." 

 


	2. Chapter One

_August 17, 2006_

☀❦

* * *

 

Drowned into the comfort of his bed, swimming in pools of his navy blue comforter lies a man, so young yet he bears many responsibilities. He adopted them when he reached the summit of sweet sixteen in legal forms, however he considered enrolling in tackling the mass of responsibilities when he was only eight years old. When already engraved in an innocent mind of an eight year old, he already knew that life didn't live up to the expectations of people drawing on lollipops and picturesque rainbows. Clouds to him were puffs of smoke that dispersed into lonely air in a sky where they didn't belong, not the kind of clouds were others wanted to grab and grub on them like cotton candy. It wasn't the like glorious days that were feigned on television for sappy kids to watch with their parents. It was the polar opposite of an effervescent light of a sunny day; out there, the world was encompassed by repetitions of sorrow, misery, and fear that combined into a ballistic rainstorm, with a hint of tornadoes to make the day treacherous than it already had been.

Sunlight calls him up, the shimmers from the ray of iridescence tugs at him. It forces him to reel himself out of bed like a fish out of a lake. Groggily and exhausted from his previous twelve hour shift from last night, he gradually hoists himself up from his bed and dips his toes into the sand of his own carpet. 

He was drowsy from the night before, working a twelve hour shift of working at the local autoshop. Mechanical work, albeit he had a passion for it, simply just the strategy of working with his own hands-god's mastered creation, is what it was- it was an exhausting process. Fixing cars was like healing patients in a surgical room: it was worth the excruciating painful labor and exertion. Especially when he prioritizes caring for a sister that was younger than him, and the only person she could depend was him in terms of guidance. She needed him as much as he needed her. The love that they had constructed was inseparable. He was her best friend, and she was his. The two siblings loved each other so much, to the point it resembled the ideology of a father daughter companionship. 

As he manages to prop himself up from his bed, the scent of pancakes wafts through his nostrils. The fragrance of the flour tunnels through, the pancakes perfume canvasses it's painting. A remedy to visualize, stacked and layered like a staircase, tucked in with a blanket of butter and droopy syrup. His stomach rumbles, his hungry predator gnawing at him for him to eat. If he didn't take a bite of those fluffy angels, he'd go ballistic.

Adrenaline peeks through, the fresh energy jolts him into a rush. He zips up his tawny school slacks, tautening them with a belt so they were secure. Layered over was a white polo with an indigo wool sweater vest, accessorizing it with his iconic sleek black leather jacket, that was lustrous enough but perpetually persisted that it needed to be polished daily. He always was one to get frenzied over his appearance, if there was the slightest bit of blunder to himself, he'd go on a rampage about how bad he appeared. He wanted to look good, be desirous for his Lola, the cherry cola of his existence. 

After he slipped on his socks and leather boots, which were caked with grime from working the autoshop restlessly, he headed into the bathroom to reunite with his trusted companion. 

The bathroom mirror, his friend that listened to him and was loyal to him to emphasize his decisions. To accompany him when he felt the toxicity of remorse, frustration, bewilderment, and dejection, it remind him to reconstruct his world. To remind him, to be strong, that he was strong for caring to his sister rather than scrapping her away like worthless waste. 

He swings a comb through his chocolate mop of hair, sweeping the beloved tooth pick through like a broom. When it was ideally combed to his appeal, he offered the mirror his grand smile. A rare occasion, unless it was the humor sparked between him and his friends, or a bonding moment amid him and his sister. 

" _I'm Johnny Vincent._ " 

His sister had been in the kitchen, only to reveal her cooking breakfast. Sausage simmered in a pain, sizzling bacon from the oven chimed in the chorus of breakfast, and there in a neat stack of three on a plate were pancakes glazed with a russet coating he couldn't quite identify.

_Is that peanut butter?_

He narrowed his eyes, squinting scrupulously so he could identify what was on it. Observing it, he decided with his gut feeling that it had to have been peanut butter slabbed on those floury blankets. 

The gaze averted to his sister again, who's back was directed to him. In her hand was a metal spatula digging underneath the eggs for her to flip them over. She was ready for the first day of school, aka her freshman year. The first and pivotal year to embark on her high school adventures.

Half of the brunette's curls were tousled into a ponytail, anchored with a scrunchie that resembled the feather of a blue jay. She accommodated her regular school uniform, which was similar to his in that she also attired a leather jacket as well. The only thing different was the way her hair had been styled up instead of rooting the curls down to her back. 

"Morning kid, mind if I ask what brings you up this early?" Johnny probes as he creeps into a oak wood dining chair at the dining table. His sister circuits around, clenching onto the metal spatula in one hand and her hand fanning over her chest.

"Johnny, don't startle me like that again! You know how much I hate when people sneak up on me, especially when the person that lingers on is supposed to wait for his surprise." 

Johnny scrunched up his face, his mousy eyebrows corrugating. "Surprise?" 

"Uh-huh."

Vigorously exploding into a cackle, he shook his head and harumphed at his sister's quirk. She was a fistful to manage, especially with her dorky moments like these. Corresponding with it, he'd never get drained out by her eccentric behavior because what mattered to him most was the sincerity of her moral compass. 

Girls in Bullworth were supplied in a rarity. Meaning by that, there weren't much to choose from and weren't the customized package to receive. They were either bitchy, hormonal with walking twigs for legs, too conceited and egotistical to give a damn what was going around them. It wasn't the world that caused gravity to revolve, it was them that did it. To their perception of ignorance, they were the center of the universe, not this alloy that made up the core. If anything, they were the alloy to defeat the opposition in the arguments. Elements of the best and the best, combined to make prime. 

That was until he found Lola, who had given him what he wanted without a price. A unique doll, hand crafted just for him, the cherry bob-headed, luscious dream of satin and silk skin, with lips like a tainted burgundy rose that poisoned him everytime her lips smeared with his. Collided together like a moon with it's tide, the dark couple whose story had been a beautiful lunar eclipse. Her seductive, batty oils of her eyes honed with cat wings lined atop of her lids that made her a bad betty wicked for the soul. The girl of a boy's every teenage fantasy that had been glamorous enough to be the model of a magazine had been his lustrous queen. It bemused him, to this day, even after two years of dating that this girl proceeded to love him so. 

Even if Lola had her moments, him and his sister Sabrina had been the only two women that deserved the Emmy Award for Bullworth's best female personas. They didn't inherit a lot of money, yet the two females still processed through life with shining smiles on their faces and confident attitudes that decked the faces of people that thought otherwise. 

"I'm sure the whole point of surprises sis is that you aren't supposed to spoil it to the person who you are surprising to." Johnny aimed to correct. 

"What are you trying to say?" 

The griddle hissed at Sabrina like a fowl cat ready to attack in a full fledged battle with her spatula. The catcalling compelled her to gyrate around again, the ambitious girl refusing to surrender to a cat jeering pan. The sausages were aromatic as it cooked, the heavenly splendor of the nutriment intoxicating the siblings, their taste buds beginning to boil concurrently with the simmering meat. 

"Never mind, what's this all for? Your surprise? Usually I am the one that makes breakfast every morning before school." He denotes. 

Sabrina surrenders from her attack for a moment to rapidly spin around, just so she could deliver her idiot brother the _you-can't-actually-be-this-serious_  gape. 

"No, you didn't- you didn't, you seriously didn't-" Sabrina paused briefly, deadpanning from her realization. "You did forget."

"What did I forget?" Johnny demanded. 

"Today's your birthday."

Realization poured onto Johnny's face like the pancake batter Sabrina began to pour into another pan. How she was managing to cook this breakfast by herself for the first time baffled him. She validated a good point. How could he possibly forget this awakening into the realm of adulthood? It wasn't only the birthday of all birthdays that he was impatiently begging for, from the day him and his sister transferred out of town as an escape route from their toxic parents, from getting evicted from their grandmother's house, from eventually renting a compacted house squeezed into a sandwich of other houses fit for the two siblings to reside in. He reached the hour of eighteen at midnight earlier, officially branding the day where he would finally receive the best gift of all now that he was eighteen. A legal hoodlum that stressed on extensive, diligent nights to keep the amenity of their home. To bear with him the sister he didn't want to separate from. 

"Oh," a weak fragment to utter in the moment, that he was aware of and would be consistently reminded by his sister to be enthusiastic about til the day surpassed through. 

"Today's your big day and all you have to say is, 'oh'?" Sabrina shook her head in disbelief. She immediately retrieved the plate of pancakes from the counter, heading back to Johnny once more. Instead of retaliating, she ignored the threats of the seething pans. The plate skates against the counter like an ice rink, dancing along the beige top as it glides to Johnny. 

Now that the plate of pancakes were closer to him, the peanut butter mystery would finally be resolved. From the golden appeal, it could almost pass off as caramel. 

"I wasn't going to give these to you until breakfast was completely done, but if I give these grittle cakes to you now, maybe and just maybe you will be more excited about your birthday!" She aimed the spatula at him in place of her finger, causing the older sibling to chuckle and contempt with an eyeroll. 

"So here, on behalf of your special day, I present to you: pancakes!"

Johnny dipped a finger into the peanut butter, heedless to smudge it. "Is this peanut butter?"

Sabrina lingered her gaze away from him, shame striking her face. "We didn't have any frosting, and I heard peanut butter is a good substitute for icing, so I thought why not give it a try?" 

_At least she offered._

It didn't matter if the meal didn't appeal to him, but what did matter was the attempt, the every ounce of consideration she put into it. 

Johnny grabbed the fork from the plate and dived into it, slicing out a chunk of a pancake with a scoop of peanut butter as if it were an actual birthday cake. He swamped it into his mouth, emerging into a big smile.

"I love it," he responded with his mouth full, swallowing it down, "thanks sis."

There used to be a time where he had loved peanut butter. But, evolving away from the era of infinite peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, he effortlessly grew out of the phase of liking peanut butter. Every time he looked at it, he repelled at it in disgust. The peanut butter was like his parents: something he will always throw away. Except in a situation like this, where the significance of turning eighteen was the reminder clamoring in his head. 

"Happy birthday Johnny, I know we have to go back to school today, and the thought of that is insufferable, but I just hope you make every minute count."

He will make every minute count once he receives the gift of a lifetime. That is, if he could afford it. "I will."

The malodorous burning flesh of the pancakes and sausage instantly alarmed him. The hissing of the pans intensified to ear-piercing shrieks, her plan of a perfect birthday breakfast submerging into the deep end.

"Uh, sis? Did _you_ forget something?" 

His little sister- the dorky Sabrina Vincent with admirable quirks that he couldn't resist to love-rotated around and cued the song of a lunatic. 

"Oh shit!"

"Language." Johnny warns, yet slightly amused by her incapable attempt to recover the pancakes. 

She turns the burners off, and from the devastating expression morphed into her face, there was no hope in resurrecting the life of the pancakes. Her lips pouted, the memory of when she was a little kid whimpering ingrains through his head. She had this distinct way of sulking, with the bottom half of her lip trembling like the flicker of an ignited candle. And like melted wax, tears would foam against her cheeks. And not only would her expression soften, but so would her heart. The frailest key he needed to shield from one's touch. Her heart needed to be protected, especially considering she was going to be a freshman in high school. 

"My pancakes burnt!" She complained, pounding at the charred flake with her spatula. 

Simpering, Johnny reverted his peer to his pancakes, swimming in the layered goodness. Albeit, Sabrina's pancakes may have not been restored, but his liking for peanut butter had ascended. 

"Dork."

 


	3. Chapter Two

August 17, 2006

✐༄

* * *

Bullworth Academy had been diminutive in it's population status. It's enrollment barely reached a hundred students, let alone sixty-five. Boys dominated the girls in everything: the ratio of males to female students was forty-nine to twelve, the only available sport for girls to play was cheerleading, and their reputations weren't infamous to terminally destroy their career. Some of the female's reputations sourly made them scandalous. 

 Prevalent as being easy among the male students with more investment in bring active in the sex scene instead of a runner funneling around a track. Few were dazzling intellectuals with their hearts heavily set on exploring their exotic ambitions. Then there was the medley of songs, a girl who had been pronounced both to Bullworth's standards. 

That was Sabrina Vincent's reputation. 

She was deemed an alluring dreamboat in the ocean of the other girls that attended Bullworth Academy. Angels chimed glorious stars in her hickory brown eyes, the shimmery twinkles enhancing her ability to entice someone into a trance. The glitter of her eyes were a witch's spell: it bound anybody to fall in love with her. 

The chocolate curls, twined elegantly in soft waves that whiffed of eternal sunshine, opened the gateway to tropical paradise. Spritzed with her emblematic rose vanilla perfume, the boys were swooned at her heels. Similar to Johnny, she had inherited captivating looks that effortlessly made anyone lust after the Vincent siblings. Her nose was a cute button attached to her face. The celestial gleam proved to anyone that heaven was real if an angel like that strutted the school lot. 

Because of her intimate beauty, that was effortless and beamed so natural to her exquisite form, she was perceived as one of the of the seductive girls in Bullworth. That was also thanks to her brother's promiscuous girlfriend Lola Lombardi, as she had been the other female greaser of the clique who brought that misconception to her on a traveler's foot. It was something she didn't want to be reputable for, and rather, be surfaced around the school with her intelligence, with ambitious endeavors ready to bestow her path. She didn't want to escalate on the route of sex in the city; she was worth more than that. 

She didn't want to settle for easy. 

No, simplicity in life was boring; complexity was an entertaining pleasure.

And one of the things she felt was complicated, unique to enthrone her as a queen who ruled better than a princess: her education.

 

❈❈❈❈❈

 

He watches her as she fills out the pre-test in under ten minutes. No calculator. No chicken scratch allotted on the sheet. Nothing.

It's fascinating, gaping at a young girl who completes a test in a duration that is belittled to his perception, and aces it fair and square. A solid 100% that is returned to her the next day. There was no struggles hauling her path. Her enlarged brain had been on the case as if she had been the female Sherlock Holmes of Bullworth, instantly measuring every case. Every coordination, she could solve in a ginger snap of her fingers.

 It bemuses him, how in the field of females that Bullworth had to offer, how she, a prismatic, gorgeous and ample bloomed sunflower sprouted in a cultivation of delayed corn. He couldn't process how a ravishing belle had brains to her elegance. And importantly of all, she wasn't egotistical about it either. She wasn't like her best friend Beatrice Trudeau, who survived on boasted ramblings on how her point-dexter ass scored yet another A, and how she was better than anybody who received a grade a percent lower than her. For her charm, she hadn't been like the head of the Bullworth pep squad, Mandy Wiles, who obnoxiously screeched every five seconds if someone didn't call her beautiful or lust worthy directly to her face. 

She didn't seem to care what people think, and to him, that was pretty damn admirable. 

She wasn't vacuumed into this vortex that was a power bomb inside of her head that she gloated about her constant aggravating lines of success to everybody else. She was reserved, and he had liked that about her. No, she wasn't like the whiny brats that attended Bullworth Academy who dramatically wailed like a spring play if the most trivial thing occurred to her. She took things at ease. 

He sneaks in another glance of her, again mystified by her. She is cushioning in each line of her agenda book cursive handwriting that is more organized than his entire life. 

The hickory eyes counter it's attack- shit, there goes his cover. 

But it isn't an attack. It isn't a banter. It's a smile. A fucking smile that knows how to bear iridescence in a dim classroom. 

Sheepishly, his lips attempt a shy smile, but he knows it's one of those creepy simpers the nerds flash at her every time they gawk at her macabre like the clandestine serial killers they are. His teeth are in no way the inheritance of that precious girl's smile. The comparison amid each other, is that he is flawed, not only physically, but mentally. Acne spreads over his face like a balloon, a noticeable ugly grape splotch glooms over his right eye the way a thunder cloud possesses the sky so unwelcoming, and on the same eye, a lightning bolt scars over his brow. A gap sweeps between his teeth, the infinities of insecurities fluctuates as each flaw is adopted to himself. 

His mouth agape, he wants to enunciate something. Small talk, simple where he doesn't have to exchange more than ten words to downright make a fool out of himself to her. But he can't, as her stunning grace intimidates him and prevents him from arousing the exchange. It's probably for the best; better not come out a fool than making a mockery of himself.

His attention averts to Mr. Hattrick, his least favorite teacher who is corrupted just as the other bozos in the teaching facility at Bullworth. He slams his test against the hardwood desk, which was already uncomfortable and age had defied it miserably. 

He was so tall, he could barely fit inside the desk. 

"Thomas Gurney!" 

Using his full name this time. Great. 

A few titters erupt as the volcanic Mr. Hattrick broils at the top of his lungs. His dark skin is flushed red, steam ejects from his nose and ears. This volcano seriously thinks he can tame him?

Tom wearily glances up, feebly shaking like a ill-stricken dog. "Yes sir?"

He caves into the insolent Hattrick's fraudulent insanity. Just because he has the higher authority, that somehow lodged inside of his puny brain he could take advantage of the students and humiliate their failures and discomfort to the entire class. Albeit, he was infuriated with a bleak expression to his features, underneath that sour wrath was a sinister Cheshire grin enjoying the sick pleasures of discouraging his students. 

The reason he had loved his occupation so much was because of his ability to remit students with so much hate. To make them seal into their bottle of insecurities even more and cry in the misery he loved.

"You have received yet another F! I think it's time to put you in the remedial class, first thing tomorrow morning!" 

Tom bowed his head in shame, forcing his gaze to meet with his own calamity than the chaotic disaster in front of him. An amused chuckle, the wicked laugh that doomed his enjoyment in school, was emitted from the immoral disgrace of a man. 

"How pathetic, can't even man up and meet my eyes!" His spit lathered over his hair, Tom wiping the back of his head to rid of the man's taste from him. 

"Hear this class! Our Thomas here somehow has failed the pre-test in sophomore class. Skills even a fifth grader can pull better than him! What a mutiny to the school!" 

A hoarse laugh is stomached and expelled from the man like the embarrassed sigh Tom had discharged at the same time. 

Perhaps, being in the remedial class wouldn't be so bad. He wouldn't have to worry about being a pubic display of embarrassment to himself in front of Sabrina, who probably only thought worse of him. That, from the smile they had encountered together, it was out of a pity party. 

"Mr. Hattrick, don't put him in the remedial class," a voice insisted. A soft voice it was, hushed and petite, delicately mellifluous for him to hear. Bleeding out from her was a dove's serenade, a peaceful remedy he could listen to all day. 

As Mr. Hattrick pivoted his attention coordinately with Tom, they both discovered to be Sabrina, who didn't utter much words except for answering a question in class.

His voice grumbled, a bear was lassoing the dove with it's paw. "This isn't any of your business Miss Vincent!"

"This will be, if you hear my proposition to you."  

 Mr. Hattrick arches an eyebrow, curiosity peaked at whatever this proposition was. 

"What would be the likings of this proposition, Miss Vincent?"

Sabrina shrugged, timid. "Chances are slim to gain if you hear me out."

Slim to gain?

Tom was apprehensive, worried over what underlies in this proposition ahead. For the brink of being, he was about to cease her from what she had to offer. This was his mess to clean up, she shouldn't be wiping the counters already.

Hattrick, for the moment, was considering it. Contemplating against making Tom's life a living hell?

Sabrina really did have one over people, huh?

"Okay," he permitted, rubbing his chin thoroughly in rumination, "what would this proposition be, per say?" 

"I can tutor Tom."

"You are saying, if you allow me to reconsider enlisting sir Thomas here in the remedial course, you would tutor him and get him a better grade to keep him in this math class?"

Sabrina's expression was blank, no contortions founded. "Yes."

"Then, so be it," Hattrick finalized, reverting his peer to him, "Thomas, you are allowed to stay in this class for the rest of the school year, if your grades improve. I'm counting on you Miss Vincent, to be taken seriously for this proposition. Thomas and I will be counting you to see to things a guaranteed change. You have this semester, and if there is no change, I will not hesitate to march your butt into that remedial class!"

Sharply, he dived into Tom's face cavernously, causing him to nervously swallow his bile. This horrendous man had been out to get him since his freshman year. That just because he struggled with math, Hattrick had sought to plant a whole garden of vengeance on him for being a poor student. To torment him by publicizing him as a dunce, an abomination that tainted the school with his sudden splurge of stupidity Now that Sabrina was at his tail, which he wouldn't be astonished if he hired her as his tutor to humiliate him, 

"Don't consider this a second chance, Mr. Gurney! This, is your final warning." Hattrick seethed. 

"Do not screw this up. The _both_ of you."

The sinister man rotated, his back direct to the students. He rambled on about the first lesson of the school year, of course to Tom's fortunate circumstances, it was a lesson featured on fractions. 

Secluding himself from the lesson, a poor decision he probably shouldn't be making granted his 'warning' from Hattrick, he peered over to Sabrina. She met his gaze, similar to last time. The scenario was repeated again, only this time around, he had been the first to smile. 

 

 


	4. Chapter Three

August 17, 2006

☆♪

* * *

 

After math class was over -a dreadful two extensive hours with Hatprick- Tom scrambled his math textbook and composition notes journal and hastily attempted to swim through the moana of anxious people surfing out the door to lunch and free periods. Desperately, he tried to locate the chocolate haired Venus of the sea. When he discovered the only brunette girl aside from Mandy, he lightly cupped his hand onto her shoulder. She swished around in the ocean, astounded to approach his gaze. 

"Sabrina, uh, hey," he greeted timidly, grazing his fingers along the nape of his neck meekly. There it goes again, the hickory swirls like the entrance to a mocha dream. The glints of celestial bodies encompassing a full moon, intimidating him where he was agitated. Overwhelmed by the beauty this belle had to offer him, it restricted him to pull a decent conversation 

"Hi," she reciprocated shyly, attempting to edify the sensation of comfort with that reassuring smile, her burgundy tinted lips squished together like round berries.

"About the tutoring, would today work out for you?" He asked her, feeling as if he was begging her for a date she wouldn't reject. But to dismantle his hopes and dreams, unintentionally, the frown in the sea of smiles she offered him already told him it was a spurning she couldn't turn her back on. 

"I'm sorry, I'd love to Tom, I would, but you see, I have my brother's birthday today to celebrate. So, I couldn't. Maybe another day?" She had offered, plagued with guilt. She just conceived a proposition to Hattrick that warranted him to remain in the normal class, thanks to her. She rescued him, but here she was letting him sink into the abyss. Albeit, he wasn't a friend, not even a standing acquaintance, shame crumbled the girl into shards. 

"Oh... that's right."

He didn't know what to enunciate. These two just started talking- literally, in the .00 decimal of nanoseconds-they haven't had much of an interaction, til the current brink of this moment. It's not like they were at a comfortable rate for him to plead at her feet like a desolate stray dog to permit him to stay. It wasn't her fault that she had plans on a day he could be saved. 

Before she could proceed to leave towards the cafeteria, a hopelessly desperate Tom mustered up the courage to keep the conversation flowing. He didn't want the all of the lava from the volcano to funnel out and this encounter to scatter into soulless ash: the bitterest nothing. 

"Are you by chance busy tomorrow?" Tom queried, awkward in his trance. Sabrina remained, respectfully concentrating on the helpless boy in need of resurrecting his deceased grades from the grave. She didn't flee, she didn't bolt like the rest of the conceited girls who only flaunted about themselves. 

"I'm not sure, I think I am free. Can I get back to you?"

"Yeah, of course! I work tomorrow at Dollar General from 3 to 11:30, but I have a thirty minute meal break at 7:00. If you could tutor me then, that would be great." 

"The one down on Maplecrest Lane?" Sabrina asked. 

That was peculiar. She went to Dollar General almost everyday, from an excessive hour of grocery shopping on happy Fridays, thrilling on the trendiest makeup they had to offer for reasonable bargains, and to quickly grab her monthly necessities. She never seen him work at Dollar General, or perhaps she had simply not noticed. Either she wasn't aware of his outer school existence or he worked part time roughly fifteen hours a week. Maybe he was a clandestine ninja warrior who applied all of his time at Dollar General stocking in that portal she was curious to trespass ever since she first started going there. Or perhaps the rumor that had it the preternatural wolf that lurked the Bullworth metropolitan in the decaying night was him and he had to discreet himself from the public while working if fur sprouted along his body.

"Yes, the one that is right across from the closed movie theater." 

"I've never seen you work there," she admitted, clutching onto her books for assistance on keeping the conversation steady. She didn't want to make this situation anymore restless just as Tom did. 

"And I go there almost everyday."

Tom shrugged dubiously, uncertain of how to field a response to her observation. Usually, he was the one that rung her up on the primary register. It made sense to him, as she essentially fixated her focus to something else other than him whenever she was in a store. Like a library brimful of books, he happened to be the one she didn't delve her interest in. 

"Eh, I'm all over the place whenever I work at Dollar General. That's probably why you don't ever see me." He fibbed.

A half lie he foretold, which was partially honest. Recently, they had hired a couple new employees, those employees which happened to be dropouts from Bullworth Academy. Now his agenda for work was bound to alter variously.

"Do you need my number?" He offered to provide. Howbeit, considering she never had interacted with him till now, she was reluctant on getting his number. But a sudden change of musing altered her decision.

"Yeah I do!" She responded immediately.

Tom provided a cheeky smile. "Great! Do you have your phone on you, or a piece of paper I could jot down my number on?"

Jostling through her pocket while bearing textbooks in one arm was a struggle she could not prosper. Idiotic of her to not have dropped her books to the ground temporarily when swimming her hand through the lake of her leather jacket pocket for her phone. 

Where the hell was it? 

She finally scrounged up her phone, which the piece of shit contraption nearly injured itself when it fell out of her reach. Thankfully, Tom caught it for her and chuckled shyly. 

"Good thing I caught it for you. I swear these things are just as slippery as soap, mine slipped out of my reach the other day. Good thing it didn't break."

Casually, he typed his number into her phone, which was a Samsung Slider. He simply aliased himself as Tom and saved his contact onto her phone, returning it to her after. Their hands brushed together from the slight interaction, and apprehensively, Sabrina slid it away like her phone slid out of her pocket clumsily. 

"Shoot me a text if you can meet up tomorrow," he persisted, withdrawing himself from the girl, where she observed him meticulously as he camouflaged himself with a group of similarly dressed students. 

 

✿✿✿✿✿

 

"Happy birthday Johnny!" Peanut exclaims, holding up what it appeared to be a beer can but was actually a Beam Cola fresh from the soda machine. Condensation swims away from the icy blue can, coldness matting his hand as he accepts the offer from his best friend. They met when they were twelve, where they were adjusting to New Coventry. Albeit, Johnny had transferred over and caterpillared his way in as the new kid a couple weeks after Peanut moved, it didn’t halt the inseparable friendship they had sprouted. It initiated when Johnny aided Peanut in a fight against two bullies, who were harassing him for being a poor, puny kid out on the streets. 

About five years later, so much has changed amid the two friends. One of the important adjustments in puberty was the sudden growth spurt Peanut had rooted from his freshman year. He still deemed himself to have a bit of a Napoleon Complex for standing at 5'10", but to Johnny it was better than his miniscule size at his pre-teen stage. 

"Thanks Peanut," he chugs down the whole can of the frigid refreshment and squeezes it tautly, tossing the can into the trash can that was a distance away from him. A perfect aim, no wonder he was offered a position on the basketball team. 

"Happy birthday, you old fart," an overweight greaser comments, who was hovering over a work bench where a bike propped upside down was on the table, ready for It's first time up of the school year. 

"I sure feel like an old fart Hal, I had to crack my neck twice today." 

"You got any plans for your first day of legal adulthood?" Another greaser chimes, with sepia toned skin and gorgeous curls greased into a short haircut. 

Johnny doesn't hesitate to answer immediately. "Oh you bet I do, Johnny here has been looking forward to this a long time." 

"Why is turning eighteen so important to Johnny? It's just another birthday, isn't it?" Hal demanded. 

Hal had transferred to Bullworth Academy in the winter semester last year of his junior year. The greasers accepted him into his clique upon recommendation from Lefty Mancini over paying for a pack of smokes and a hot dog at a gas station one day in hopes of making friends in the area. Granted, he was still fresh with some things such as this, but he wasn't exactly sworn into close friendships with the boys except for a couple. Johnny had trust issues, thanks to the vinegar mouthbreathers that were his parents. Hal had been the only one out of his 'boys' that wasn't aware of Johnny's special plan for him and Sabrina. 

In a way, it was like a birthday present to twins that had the same birthday as this specific present would be special to the both of them. 

"Well Hal," Johnny prompted, contemplating for a good few seconds if it was appropriate to tell him. Disrupting him before he could talk was Lefty, who couldn't resist to chide a remark at the dumbstruck Hal about turning eighteen. 

"There's a lotta things you can do when you are an adult Hal! Gee, I wonder what they are? Oh, you can buy a pack of smokes now without having to jumble a bunch of fake IDs, finally scratch off a lottery ticket, become emancipated-"

"Lefty, don't disturb Johnny when it's time for him to talk," Peanut snapped at him like a teacher with a kindergartner. 

And that was one of the primitive rules that was established at number one. Overwhelmingly, they endorsed in the membership of the clique. It was to never interrupt the alpha from his time of speaking. 

"Sorry J. Go on," permitted Lefty, who received a dagger from Johnny who resumed on.

"As everyone knows, my baby sister means the world to me. In a way, from raising her my entire life it's almost normal to claim her as a daughter. And through raising her on my own, which was basically the day our grandma had her share of us when I was a sophomore, I had this perpetual fear of someone taking her away from me. My parents, my grandma, an unknown aunt or uncle that are abroad at some sea.

"The reason why I've been looking forward to this day of being 18 means I can legally set forth with it. I can legally adopt Sabrina."

Hal furrowed his eyebrows, still confused about the process. "But you are her guardian, aren't you Johnny? Since you are already blood, she's technically under your watch, isn't she?" 

Silence seeps through the atmosphere, tension rises and meshes together to exhibit an awkward arousal. Every one blinks, processing Hal's question, who in this case regrets begging the deliverance. 

"I am her guardian yes," Johnny confirmed.

"But it doesn't mean that someone can steal her away from me. You know what would happen to me? _Me_ , Johnny Vincent, if someone were to ever take my sister away?" 

He shakes his head vigorously, unable to process the fathom of being separated from his sister from out of his control. Numerous occasions, the thought had split through to his mind. It was the unexpected contingency that their deadbeat parents could spring out of jail and somehow justify to the court their reasons for their ludracris behavior, and grant themselves selfishly the line of passage, to weave into their way to Sabrina and capture her from her brother. The only guardian who was capable to care for her. 

Or their grandmother could act upon the sneaky ancient bat she was and snatch her up onto her wing and flap away from Johnny's reach. As a guardian, you had to expect this to be an occurrence. Be cautiously aware and secure yourself into the possibilities like a puzzle piece. Johnny had to be prepared, and like the caverns of a frozen hell draped over his body would he settle for Sabrina to be in the reach of someone that wasn't him. 

"With her being into my custody legally, no one would steal the right of me being her guardian. They would be restricted from taking her away from me."

Ricky Pucino, a charming greaser with a greasy net of chestnut brown locks piped up. "Doesn't Sabrina have the right to speak for her own mind of who she wants to go with though?" 

Peanut shook his head, once again refusing to oppose to Johnny's defense. "It don't matter. In the system, they are going to do whatever they damn please. Whatever is warped inside their tiny brains, they are going to decide on the faintest idea of what is right for a child. There are meth addicted mothers with pipes so far up their asses, who still bear the presence of their own children. Whereas the father is granted no custody at all and is completely stable enough for the kid, as a matter of fact owns a better environment to raise em' in." 

An auburn haired greaser who referred himself by Lucky as an abbreviation for his full name, dived into the sea of the conversation. He shuffles through his denim jacket pocket for his squished pack of blue Eagle 20's and attains one in his hand. Aside him, Ricky insightfully ignites the cherry stud. 

He drifts it to his lips, flickering the ash off the tip and observes intently as the salt and peppered dust dissolves into absence, wishing the mothers who didn't qualify to be a parent to disappear just like ash.

"It don't matter these days, fathers seem to be blamed for everything these days because of this developing bad reputation. You can go out and have a drink with a few buddies, be a genuine father who adores and loves his children, then the second they are taken away from them. Just for having a drink on the occasion. Like jeez." 

"And for my smoking and drinking, it's really something I gotta get better about. They run inspections in homes when you apply for this kind of stuff. It's like an evaluation sorta thing to make sure you deserve your rights to owning a kid." Johnny admitted, itching at his forehead with his main digits. 

"Johnny, you are perfectly fine man," Norton assures, bumming a cigarette off of Lucky. Their instructor Neil smoked in class himself, and considering these boys worked their asses off in this class -hours of dedication and sweat the size of the gallon cartons- he warranted them to smoke whenever they felt like it. Whenever Crabblesnitch or a prefect queried about it to their suspicions, Neil bullshitted his way through it. And not was he good at being an instructor for the shop courses, but he was a professional liar too. 

"You are the perfect guardian for Sabrina, I feel like you are getting in over your head here," Norton insisted. 

"I mean, the kid is like what, one of those nerds ain't she?" Hal asked. 

Johnny contorted his features, skeptical.

"My sister ain't no nerd, she's an honor student, but no way is she one of em'. The kid's at the top of her class already, a straight A student." 

Lefty wretched into pure disgust as if biting into a sour apple. "Hal, why would you ever compare to someone as gorgeous as Sabrina to Algie the pee stain?" 

"Lefty, that's not what I meant. I think you completely just misinterpreted that." 

"Well," Lefty shook his head disapprovingly.

"Sabrina just ain't a nerd. If you got a good look at her." 

He earned himself a glower from Johnny, intimidating him with one of his threatening scowls. As a good big brother and guardian, one of his priorities was to make sure no guy was messing with his baby sister, the wrong way or right way. No one was to toy with the female Vincent. 

 Even from his group of friends, it was a rule that Johnny didn't condone them flirtatiously peppering remarks about Sabrina. 

"Don't be hittin' on my sister Left. As for anyone, you aren't to be. She's off limits." 

A swarm of curses charmed in their heads emerged like fireflies at night, only seen in the darkness of their minds. A majority of the greasers wished they could of had a chance with the female Vincent, but it had been for a variety of reasons. And following on the behalf of Johnny's restrictions, this was only one of them. 

 


	5. Chapter Four

August 17th, 2006

☂✹

* * *

 

The bell choruses through the school halls, a declaration to the students that the first day of school was officially finished. Students trample over another like a wild horse race, galloping in the storm of people to exit the school corridors. It's a competition to see which student can exit first during rush hour. 

The varying cliques are families of fish at sea as they swim through the waves of hallways. Some remain at their lockers like coral attracting fish, either catching up with their friends or miscreant bullies shoving nerds into lockers. Faculty staff weave frantically through the sea of students, maniacal prefects patrol the hallways like police officers in the streets, and clamors of friendships unite after two dreadful hours of afternoon classes. 

Loose sheets of paper sway in the breeze of the schoolways, gravity fishing them away from the seabed of the school. First day homework assignments and textbooks are scattered all over the floor, abandoned intentionally for the janitor to complete with his sweeping duties. Grunts are rolled out into the tremendous riptide of the student body, irritated by the catastrophe the first day always blooms into. 

Sabrina follows her obligations- a few minutes later than intended. She races to the back doors where she planned to meet Lefty and Ricky, to attend to their priorities in regards to Johnny's surprise party. A couple weekends prior, she had scheduled a hangout with greasers in Johnny's absence while he had to make a run to his girlfriend's apartment to check on things while she was gone for the summer. For a hour, discussions sprawled up of arrangements intensified by Sabrina's desires to perfect his eighteenth birthday. In advance, she had ordered a cake from the bakery in Bullworth. She consumed her babysitting savings stocked from the summer to elaborate a uniquely decorated cake for Johnny-and it wasn't the cheapest either she had bargained for. Aside from that, she had already pre-owned his birthday gift like a cell phone. Not to mention the limitless hours of planning was expensive to her arrangements in terms of perfecting it. There was no flaw to be budgeted in this party. 

She wanted her brother to have the exposure to the day of his life. Through the tears he's withered, the galaxies he's stayed up with, the pain he's antagonized from the war of surviving. Whether it be from his parents, his enemies, or rescuing their home from slithering into eviction, she wanted pain to be forbidden. Like a dictator, it was to be abolished from the land of his happiness. This day was to be a glorious sun with vibrant clouds dancing on streams of rainbows, with no chance of violent thunderstorms to shriek, shower, and slash the gateway of his adulthood. 

"Hey Sab!" Lefty awards her with his ravishing grins, vivid as the moonlight glowing in an indigo painted sky. He was the expert of charming the ladies with his cheeky personality. Any doll he spotted, he wasn't shy to deliver a flirt there way. 

He owned a reputation for being a wanderer, varying from girl to girl each night. Sabrina couldn't deny, he was attractive and was probably her favorite of her brother's friends. But if he wasn't the type of guy to screw around so much, she'd consider asking him out on a date. 

The girl doesn't hesitate to be coquette herself. 

"Hi cutie. Do you guys remember the plan for Johnny's birthday party today?"

As Lefty snickers, abashed by her reciprocated flirt, Ricky pipes up as the conversationalist. "Yeah, all set. Peanut is distracting Johnny, gunna take him up to Shiny Bikes in Bullworth Vale. That should spare us a decent amount of time." 

"Yeah, give er' take, a couple hours?" 

Sabrina clasped her hands together, her plan leveling up to perfect already. "Amazing! And I already called during lunch time today to make sure the cake for Johnny's party was ready from Cotter's Bakery. They have it ready to go for pickup!"

"Awesome!" Lefty returned merrily. 

Ricky nodded in triumph, at ease that everything was tailgating smoothly. He knew how much this party meant to Sabrina, as a matter of fact relating to it. He had an older brother that meant a lot to him who was currently enlisted in the navy. When he comes back overseas, Ricky immediately is the one to plan an epic party for his brother to arrive back to. So, he understood completely why Sabrina was sacrificing plenty for Johnny. It was the littlest of things you had to dedicate to your siblings. You may feud over pathetic tantrums, but at the end of the day it was still your sibling. 

"Johnny is going to love it Brin, I just know it. With you going out of your way for him, he's going to feel appreciated and I hope you know, that you are a good sister." 

"The best sister that any brother could ask for," added Lefty. 

Sabrina offered a shy smile, flushed at the compliments for being a good sister; on occasions, she felt like she took her brother for granted. Johnny has done a lot for her, obviously with providing her with a roof over her head thanks to his sweat and bone. In a way, she felt like she owed him a lot and with this party as tribute, it definitely would demonstrate how much she adored him immensely. 

"Gee, thanks guys. I can't help it, I just want this day to go absolutely perfect for him. My brother deserves it, if i could give him the world, I would." Sabrina admitted, chewing on her upper lip as a force of habit. 

Anxiety could be a snarky bitch when it wanted to. 

"Johnny already has the world," Ricky insisted, muddling his gape with hers. 

"It's you Sabrina. You are his world." 

:::

By the time the trio arrives at Cotter's Bakery, which was a subtle Shoppe ran by a local family, it was 4:00. It was sandwiched amid an abandoned movie theater and a fireworks shop, exceptional for less attraction. Especially at this time of the hour, not being incredibly busy was easier access to retrieving the cake and fleeing back to the Vincent residence to help the others in embellishing their house with party decorations. 

The bakery was adorned with vivacious colors thanks to the sun. The sky had transitioned into a pink rose, glazing the buildings with orange pigments as the golden flesh from the sun fused with the pink. Veneered over the concrete exterior was the logo. Cushioned against a peppermint printed, rectangular shaped border was the family surname "Cotter's" elaborated in cursive. Bold in white like clouds on a clear sunny day, with the pink sky frosting the outlines like the appliance of light blush on cheeks of a baby. 

In a way, the pink of the sky presented an ideal display of how Sabrina imagined the cake to be. Picturesque like the bakery itself, and the icing the exact color of the cute pink pigment of the logo. 

The windows were polished spotless, translucent and sparing the trio the good deed of their reflection. The boys simply fixed their hair before they entered inside meanwhile Sabrina weaved straight inside. 

Her arrival was signaled by the mellow chime of the bell, where she was greeted by a couple of friendly faces that belonged to younger children. Ricky and Lefty followed after performing good measures to their slicked back hair, preparing themselves for any signs of some ravishing chick to pop up during their time here. 

Lefty roves around the bakery, pleasantly satisfied by the scent of fresh goods wafting through his nostrils. Donuts are honeyed eloquently on a plate, laced with pink icing the shade of strawberry bubblegum and clad with rainbow sprinkles. Midway, he was tempted to grab one of them but realized gratefully that those donuts had been nothing but fake. It would of been embarrassing if he 'nibbled' into it and recognized the fraud taste then. He was glad he didn't, as he could of played  himself to be a fool in front of Sabrina. 

Ricky stands aside Sabrina respectfully, observing in silence as she converses with the kids at the counter. The walls were ornamented a latte dream, the blonde coffee color relaxing even to him. And he wasn't the type of guy into decor. 

Slabbed miscellaneously had been picture frames of the family, abstract paintings, and simplistic portraits of baked sweets delineated over the walls. The floor had been a like a checkerboard, composed in print of eggshell white and an oily black. Ricky had to admit, this bakery was appealing. 

"Hi! I'm Adele. How may we help you today?" A cordial blonde, who looked to be younger than Sabrina by a few years, is the first to greet of her and a carrot head boy half her size. 

"Hello there I'm Sabrina Vincent, I'm here to pickup my cake." 

"Okay! You must be the one with the last cake pickup for today. I'll be right back." 

Sabrina awaited patiently with Ricky and Lefty as she went to fetch her cake. In the meantime, they were left with the young boy, who kept offering them cheesy grins. Freckles were splattered over his face like sprinkles on a cupcake. 

When Adele returned with a cake protected by a plastic surface, heartbeats sprinted rapidly by the second as if it was a cross country marathon. Sabrina had been waiting for this precious cake ever since what felt like eternity, and now she finally has it.  _ The _ cake of all cakes she was going to present her brother with. 

The cake settled on top of the counter, and so did Sabrina's inner gut. Her gut had flipped upside down and settled that way where she felt this permanent wretch there that couldn't vanish from her. It was like as if all that brimmed inside of her, her gut had leaped over the first hurdle and failed miserably on the first attempt. 

Disappointment marred Sabrina's face. 

"Um, this says Sorry For Your Loss Timothy. It's supposed to say Happy Birthday Johnny." 

The blonde's face flushed the similar shade as the red candy that was swimming in the white pool of the cake. "Oh no! My dad had to leave today and he said there were two cake orders I was supposed to give out. This was the last one, so I guess that means I must of given yours accidentally to the previous customer! I am so sorry!" 

The carrot top boy laughs at his sister's stupid mistake. It was another mistake added to the list for him to foretell his parents like a bedtime story.

She muttered something to herself and ascends off into a scolding session, rambling along the lines of how stupid she was. 

"I'm truly, truly sorry. I should of paid attention, gosh I feel so pathetic!" Adele apologized frantically, as if overwhelmed by the fact she wouldn't be able to impress her father. 

Despite the situation, Sabrina was the one with guilt barreling down her throat. "Hey, no worries. Is there any way you can change it to say Happy Birthday Johnny?" 

There was no redemption founded in Adele's gaze. Sabrina's lips plunged into a frown, disappointed her cake couldn't be resurrected. 

"No, my dad says that I'm not allowed to mess with the birthday cakes. I only sell them to customers," she affirmed. 

A snort is ejected from Lefty pathetically. "I wonder why." 

Sabrina elbows him in his side, not gently either, the pointy end jabbing him. He winces, pain emerging from the stab of her sharp elbow. For a delicate angel, she had the touch of a devil if she wanted to. 

It hurt immensely more than the time he had gotten into a brutal fight with his ol' man, which resulted so badly he had scarred his cheek with a knife when he was thirteen. It instigated the name Lefty as the scar was tattooed on the left side of his cheek. He wasn't sure if it had been a mere coincidence if the left turn to everything was his lifestyle. As if being left was etched into habitat like the scar on his cheek, he was left handed and walked dominantly on his left leg. 

"Do you still want the cake? I can try to call my dad and see if he will give you a refund, but he won't be too happy about it." 

If Sabrina was a spoiled rich brat, she'd ramble a melodramatic fuss about the cake debacle. But considering she was the absolute opposite -a generous, amiable, and compassionate one- she allowed it to slide. Besides, she was only a kid. Kids were famous for the trivial of mistakes. 

"No need for a refund, I'll take the cake." Sabrina insisted. 

A spread of relief immersed through Adele's features. 

"Oh my gosh, thank you!" She pivots to her brother, who had simply been silent this whole time. He had an amused grin on his face that read of him profiting a hard bargain for his sister to accept. Of course, in those terms it meant she had to do something for him so he won't tattle to their daddy. 

Ricky delicately nudges Sabrina with his shoulder, their sides sweeping against each other as the trio curated around. She gently cradles the cake in disappointment, chewing on her upper lip as she consistently reads the error on her cake. 

_ Sorry for your loss Timothy.  _

"Brin, don't be so hard on yourself. It's just a cake," he murmurs assuringly. 

She doesn't approach his gaze, or peers straight ahead, even as Lefty opens the door. Silence is temporary to the girl's heart. As soon as they are out of the bakery, her voice awakens on the streets. 

"You don't understand, Rick. I wanted my brother's birthday to be perfect, even the cake, but all I ended up getting was a sorry for your loss cake. The completely wrong occasion. Maybe next time they'll send me an apology labeled with Sorry for your loss Johnny." 

Lefty arches an eyebrow. "Why sorry for your loss Johnny?" 

She pouts her lips and clumps against the idle sidewalk with the cake flopping in her lap. 

"Because of the fact he has a lousy sister who screws everything up." 

The boys instantly accompany the female Vincent at both sides of her. Lefty coils an arm around her shoulder, narrowing the space between him by tugging her close to him for comfort. 

"No, no, don't say that doll." 

"It's true." 

Ricky shyly rubs Sabrina's other side reassuringly, as one of the things he hated seeing was a girl upset. Especially when someone as gracious as Sabrina Vincent was distraught. 

Whenever she was down, fields were at a drought. It was like the world was going under all at once into some treacherous abyss that couldn't be saved. 

"It's just a cake Brin, do you think it would matter to Johnny what it says on the cake?" 

She shrugged hopelessly. "It might matter, considering it's his birthday. We aren't celebrating a funeral you know." 

"Why not treat it as if we are celebrating a funeral?" 

She furrowed her eyebrows. "What do you mean?" 

"Meaning," Ricky began, summoning the attention of Lefty and Sabrina. A correspondence of wonder filled the hickory brown orbs of the beauty and silvery silk blue eyes that belonged to his close pal. 

"We should treat life as a celebration. Not just for funerals and birthdays, but in general. Because life is precious, and getting this cake proves it. It doesn't matter if it's for the wrong occasion, because it's still a celebration. Instead of moping around about the mistakes you made, enjoy it. Celebrate those too, as it's a important part of growing up. Appreciate those that mean a lot to you, kid. Including your brother -especially your brother." 

Sabrina blinks, gaping at the cake as she processes thoroughly of Ricky's every word. Out of the greasers, this was why she enjoyed talking to him. People didn't know this about him, but he could be intelligent if he wanted to be. Their relationship was so dynamic and she loved her relationship with him most of all. She looked forward to the pennies of wisdom he gave her to store in her pocket. The pennies he handed her never lost their shine. 

"Ricky, just so you know, you can be one deep motherfucker," Lefty claimed, igniting a shy chuckle from Ricky. 

"I'm not sure if it's me, or the heartbreak talking." 

A few weeks ago, his girlfriend of two years, (ever since his freshmen year of high school) had called it quits with Ricky. It devastated the poor teenager to crumbles. His former girl may of been right about him putting bikes and partying ahead of her, but it didn't mean he didn't love her. He still did, as a matter of fact the girl had captured his heart. It was still with her off into the sunset, where he should be at. 

Sabrina simply shakes her head, offering him a smile. 

"No Rick. It's always been you."


End file.
